Only five million people speak Norwegian as their first language. Still many Greeks want to learn the Germanic language that share similarities to German and English. Black metal has become huge in Greece and some of the fans study the language so they can sing along to the lyrics. Others want to learn the language because of an upcoming job in Norway.
There are several ways of learning the language. Some people learn it through online courses on the internet. In Norway there are many possibilities for newly arrived immigrants. At most universities and colleges there are language courses for non-native speakers. For further information see links at the right sidebar.
There are also some possibilities to take lessons in Greece. At University in Athens’ Department of Foreign Languages one can attend Norwegian courses certified by the University in Oslo. These classes do not give study credits.
Diverse Dialects
There are two official written versions of Norwegian, Bokmål (“Book Norwegian”) and Nynorsk (“New Norwegian”). Bokmål is based on Dano-Norwegian, and has been developed from written Danish. Still today Scandinavians can easily understand each others languages both orally and written.
Nynorsk, the other official version of Norwegian, was systematized by linguist Ivar Aasen in the 1850s, and is based on a compilation of various Norwegian dialects.
Compared to other languages spoken by the same amount of people, the diversity of the Norwegian dialects is a feature that is special for the language.
Liv Nilsen Garrars teaches Norwegian to Greek students.
Similar cultures
– We’ve got the same mentality and humor, and the peoples are helpful and interested, says Liv Nilsen Garras.The Norwegian woman teaches the language at the University in Athens and as private tutor in the evenings. The difference between the Norwegian and Greek culture is not a big as one often tend to think, she underlines.
– The class I’m lecturing at the university has 16 students. Half of them are there because they have fallen in love with the Norwegian black music-scene and got a romantic idea of learning the language. The other half are there for a more practical reason, many of them doctors and lawyers moving to Norway that takes private lessons.
According to Garras there is a strong interest for Scandinavia among the Greeks, and especially for Norway. There are various reasons for why Greek students choose to study Norwegian, something which is reflected in the students attending Garras’ classes.
– I had an elderly couple here. Their daughter had married a Norwegian, so they figured out they wanted to learn the language in order to communicate better with their in-laws, she says.
Taught Fedon Lindberg
The majority of Garras’ students are doctors moving to Norway. Her very first student was a Greek doctor, who would later become one of Norway’s most famous doctors. His name was Fedon Chatzipanagiotou, well known in Norway today as Dr. Fedon Lindberg. The former student has not forgotten his Norwegian tutor. Still they have frequently contact and she translates some of his books from Norwegian to Greek.
– We are still great friends today, and I know her family very well, Lindberg tells us on the phone.
Originally Lindberg just wanted to learn a new language, but but after a series of coincidences Lindberg ended up settling down in Norway.
– Once a week for eight months. It was in 1983 and I was 22 years old. At the time I didn’t have any plans of settling down in Norway, I just wanted to learn a Scandinavian language. The following summer I attended a summer school in Oslo. My plan afterwards was to go back to Germany, but that summer of 85 made me change my mind. The weather was so nice that summer. Later I’ve learned that’s not how the weather usually is, says Lindberg.